Life in San Francisco – Page 39

March 30, 2009December 18, 2021

Harry O Menswear

When you need clothes and I’m talking clothes that give you THAT look you need to make a trip to Harry O Menswear at 124 Second Street in San Francisco.

I got my first suit from him 15 years ago and it still fits and looks brand new to this day. Harry O is the greatest guy I’ve ever met and has some of the finest Italian clothes available. Everything from classics to modern. Harry is the Godfather of fashion for men in SF.

Now here’s a little tip for you. When you go to his store tell him that Eric from baghdadbythebaysf.com sent you and he’ll give you a good discount on anything you purchase. I’ll guarantee you’ll be going back to see him again.

If you could, please click on my sponsors ad below. You don’t necessarily have to purchase anything unless you want to, but at least the click will add money to my daughter’s schooling fund, or if you like you can click on our donation link and donate even a dollar.

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March 29, 2009December 18, 2021

My Urban Garden

Well we all know the economy sucks at the moment so my wife and I decided to take on a new thing to help us out. We’ve become urban gardeners.

Living in the Sunset district poses an interesting problem. We’re supposed be living in fog all the time. Well thanks to Al Gore and global warming we aren’t so foggy anymore so we started a little test.

The pot on the far left was originally planted with Parsely and was sitting on our deck, but for some reason, probably the wind it was attacked with weeds. Now we’ve moved all the planting trays off the deck and tried again. The far left was cleaned out and planted with heirloom peas. As you can see they’re doing good, but the tray was too small so we went to home depot and purchased the longest trays they had and next to the far left are more of the same peas. Apparently peas grow well here. Next to that we planted some mesclun lettuce because we go through a lot of that when we make my famous San Francisco style burgers™.

Next to that are some green onions that had a bit of a rough start, but are starting to set in. The two blank trays have more mesclun planted since we’ll be using that a lot. I just planted them today so it’ll be about a week before we see something pop up. Oh and the second set of peas and mesclun have been growing for only about 3 weeks and are doing great.

The big pot over in the back has an early girl™ tomato planted in it. They’re supposed to do well out here which is surprising so we’ll see what happens. I’ll keep you all updated on how it goes. We’re planning on also adding more parsely and garlic next so we’ll see what happens. The nice part about all of this is that peas actually enrich the soil they grow in so when we rotate the crops we’ll start planting peas in the other trays and moving things around.

The upside of this is our little girl is now trying to help out, just like I did when my dad used to grow swiss chard, rhubarb and lettuce in the back yard. Only this time we’re growing vegetables we like. It used to be that all of our neighbors grew fruits and vegetables in their backyards. I guess it was just a working class thing for the Sunset, and since I’ve been born and raised here I’m proud to be a Sunset redneck. 🙂

January 19, 2009December 18, 2021

Now THAT is one angry neighbor!

I was driving around today and happened to notice a sign on the side of someone’s house a couple of blocks from me. Now these people leave their garbage cans outside their house all the time. Technically in San Francisco you can get a ticket for that now because a lot of people were doing that and with your black can for garbage, your blue for recycling and your green for compost it can get to be a bit of an eye sore.

I guess the way these people get around this is by building a cute little nook to sort of hide them in. Let’s get real though, it’s not hiding them just putting them behind some ugly lattice work.

If you leave your garbage cans out even though they’re behind some lattice work cage people who have something to throw out are going to drop them in your can. If the homeowners don’t like that then they should do what is right and keep the cans in their house like their supposed to do. While I’m a pretty liberal kind of guy I’m not sure I’m going to like my young daughter seeing shit in big bold letters as she walks by the house because I know she’ll start saying “Shit! shit! shit!” instead of something like “Stop! stop! stop!” I think I might have to mention this to our local law enforcement people, but that might be considered a mean spirited of me.

I on the other hand wouldn’t mind people dropping off fish tanks in front of my house as I’d find a use for them. 🙂

January 17, 2009December 18, 2021

Car for Sale. $2500 firm

Yes, I know this isn’t really about SF so much, but hopefully some of you might be interested in purchasing a great car that I’m trying to sell. Here’s the deal. My mom has decided she can’t drive anymore and we don’t need two cars. This car is a 1995 Mercury Sable Station Wagon. It had the original tires on it that were literally falling off so I replaced them with a new set of Sumitomo touring tires. The car was recently smogged and passed as always with flying colors. The inside was always kept up and my mom was the type of person that if she heard a rattle she’d run the car down to Gene’s Auto Service @ 45th and Judah [If you need car work done he’s very good and cheap!]. This car would list on Kelly Blue Book as Excellent except for the broken hinge on rear window that had to be welded because the hinges aren’t available any longer.

Here’s the kicker. The car only has 46k miles on it. That’s right, it’s a 14 year old car with only 14k miles on it. Aside from a couple of trips up to the Sierras and a few trips to Serramonte it’s been a city car. Here’s the spec’s if you want more info:

Seats 8 with rear-facing bench seat/storage in the third row.

Very clean interior, no tears, all seat belts work.

Power windows and locks. (Tailgate window does not open and close, but tailgate opens and closes just fine)

New Sumitomo Tires
AM/FM radio and cassette player
A/C recently recharged
Washer motor recently replaced in front
Rear washer & wiper
Dual front air bags (never deployed)

If you like running carfax reports the VIN is: 1MELM55U9RA612715

Email me if you’re interested

Here’s a couple more pics:

left hinge on glass is welded so tailgate opens, but not the glass. — Left hinge on glass is welded so Tailgate opens, but not the glass.

January 8, 2009December 18, 2021

R.I.P. Deadpan Host of Horror

Thanks to my good friend Mike via email this morning I was informed that Bob Wilkins, the host of 70’s horror movie show Creature Features has died as of today. This is a bit sad to me because as a kid watching Bob on Saturday night along with ordering a pizza and hanging out with my friends watching cheesy old horror movies was the best thing a few 13 years could do since we couldn’t get booze yet.

Bob has a way about that was, well nerdish, babyfaced and deadpan. He rarely showed any emotion. I can’t remember ever seeing him laugh. He was just there, but that’s what made him something that added a bit of character in the Bay Area. I remember meeting him at a Star Trek convention at Civic Center sometime around 1976. [OK, maybe I shouldn’t have just admitted that.] All he said to me was, “Oh, Hello.” shook my hand and walked off. That was about the friendliest I’ve ever seen him. It also made me realize how badly he reeked of the cigars he always smoked. Hopefully with a little luck KTVU channel 2 where the show ran will run a few repeats as a tribute. For now you’ll have to do with this short video I found on youtube.
Creature Features

December 9, 2008December 18, 2021

Keeping your head above water in SF.

homeless-coder — Brother can you spare $100,000

As you’ve probably figured out, I love San Francisco a lot. Even though this is one of the top 5 most expensive cities to live in in the world. Becoming a parent wasn’t something I had planned on, but I’m glad I did it. I would assume most people don’t plan on becoming parents especially in this economy, but they do.

There are a lot of things they tell you about when you’re going to become a parent, but unfortunately, there’s a lot more that they don’t. For instance. Wife has the baby takes care of baby until maternity leave is up then goes back to work right? Not exactly. When your wife goes back to work that means that you have to pay someone to take care of the baby unless you have family members to do it for you [we don’t]. So now unless your wife is making more than $20/hour her after taxes paycheck is just handed over to the day care group. Does this sound right?

You can also add to the fact that San Francisco which I’m sure other cities share this has a large number of employers who don’t offer health insurance. I’m lucky in that my employer does offer it, but won’t pay anything into it. I don’t think this is legal, but hell, I’m getting health insurance for us at a less than what it would cost us on our own to get. Unfortunately, at the end of the month my take home pay to keep the three of us fed and healthy is equal to less than my mother’s monthly social security check. Something is not right here. In a city as great as San Francisco the middle class shouldn’t be forced into poverty just because they had a child. The only thing going for us is that we own our house. If we didn’t we’d be on the streets.

Mayor Newsom is helping out by providing health care services which we would qualify for, but the services offered are a bit questionable as they’re clinics not true health care facilities. Something needs to be done, but at this point I’m not sure what. Richard Branson just started following me on Twitter so maybe he’ll make me his new charity. 🙂

November 24, 2008December 18, 2021

Damn those backpacks!

There. I’ve said it. I feel much better now. If you’ve ever taken Muni during rush hour you know what I’m talking about. People wearing their backpacks on the buses and metro that stick out almost a foot from them blocking people from passing them. Even worse is when the turn sideways because they think their thinner and end up smacking with they’re backpack loaded with bricks or what ever the hell they need to carry with them to work or school.

When it was just school kids I could understand. They’ve got all those books to carry and help cause spinal deformaties during their growing years [ok that’s for another post so I’ll stop that now], but adults who feel a need to carry two cubic feet of “stuff” with them to work I don’t understand. I tend to be a bit of a frugal guy and can pack a weeks worth of clothes into a carry-on. I also tend to choose the most compact multitasking things I need when I travel. Like my cell phone. It’s an mp3 player, a clock, a camera, a video camera and an FM Radio [and no it’s not an iPhone]. What the hell are they packing into those things? I think I might have to start asking them.

One of the things that would be a good idea for people to do is to take the packs off when you get on metro and carry them down in front of you then put them down between their feet when you get to your space. Yes, if you have to move you’ll have to waddle a bit like a penguin, but you’ll only have to move a foot or two at the most. I’d almost go so far as to say that should be the law, but let’s try and work together and make it just a rule to live by when you’re taking public transportation.

I’m a cranky old man, and I approve of this message. 🙂

November 18, 2008December 18, 2021

You might be a sunset redneck if…

miss_redneck_contestant1 — "The half of me that ain't yore sister wants to have sex with you!"

The Sunset District is a place I’ve called home for 40+ years. It’s an odd place that’s enveloped by fog which then will switch to hot sunny day. This is the secret of the Sunset that’s been kept from the rest of San Francisco and with global warming it only gets better as there’s less fog and more sun. Now the oddest part is that beachfront property in any other city carries a high price, but in the Sunset, it’s where we have all the low income, section 8 housing.

My guess is that came from the pre-global warming days when down at the beach there were two kinds of weather, raining, and gonna rain. There were cars up on blocks in people’s front yards or if they weren’t, they were rusting from all the salt air out at the beach. Now, thanks to C. W. Nevius of the SF Chronicle it has brought the Sunset Redneck to the forefront in an article I read today. Now I don’t remember meth labs and whorehouses in the Sunset when I was growing up, but I do remember the working class people who were trying to get ahead by saving money every way they could. I’ve decided to expand on C.W.’s article [what the hell does the C. W. stand for that it sounds so horrible he has to use C.W. anyway? It just reminds me of the actress S. Epatha Merkelson. How bad is that S if Epatha Merkelson is ok?] by creating a list of things common to the Sunset Redneck. See if you qualify even if you aren’t in the Sunset.

1. You have a car up on blocks in your front yard. [bonus if it’s an olive green 1967 Cougar]
2. The last minute and a half of Freebird is the ringtone on your cellphone
3. Girls: you put your makeup on after getting on the L-Taraval or N-Judah and are finished by Sunset boulevard
4. You’ve got a freezer in your basement
5. You’ve got an electric guitar in your basement, but you don’t play guitar
6. Someone says, “The Riptide”, “Kelly’s bar and no grill” or “Club Scirrocco” and you know the bartenders.
7. A sunny weekend means you pull 2 chaise lounges onto your driveway with a cooler of Budweiser.
8. Your lawn is what gardeners refer to as “weeds.”
9. Your mama still doesn’t know ’bout that tattoo you got.

Yep, I’m a Sunset Redneck and wees good peoples.